Giant spider

s giant spider
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Bite 2d4 poison (strength)

s giant spider
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Bite 2d4 poison (strength)
Base level	5
Base experience	64
Speed	15
Base AC	4
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	200
Nutritional value	100
Size	Large
Resistances	poison resistance
Resistances conveyed	poison resistance (33%)
A giant spider: has no hands. is an animal. can lay eggs. is poisonous to eat. is carnivorous. is normally generated hostile. is strong.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 956

A giant spider, s, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The giant spider is a large, carnivorous and oviparous type of arachnid that is strong, but cannot hide under items like other smaller monsters in its monster class can. Giant spiders will randomly spin webs every few turns if they are capable of doing so, prioritizing areas with support such as rock walls, iron bars, stairways, or ladders: they will spin fewer webs if several are already present on the level, with a higher limit to the amount of webs spun than cave spiders, and will avoid spinning webs in Sokoban levels outside of the room with the level's up stair.

A giant spider has a bite attack that inflicts strength-draining poison, and possesses poison resistance.

A giant spider corpse is poisonous to eat, but eating a giant spider corpse or tin has a ¹⁄₃ chance of granting poison resistance.

A hero polymorphed into the form of a giant spider can create a web on their square using the #monster extended command.

Generation

Randomly-generated giant spiders are always created as hostile. A cave spider can grow up into a giant spider, and a giant spider egg will hatch into a cave spider.

With the exception of bones levels, ¹⁄₃ of giant spiders that are generated during level creation will have a web on their square (which is increased to all of them if the hero has the Amulet of Yendor), and the giant spider will have a random item placed on their square as well. Each web that is placed first during level creation independently of the aforementioned webs (i.e. before monsters are generated) will have a giant spider placed atop them if the current level difficulty is at least 7.

The "spider nest" themed room has a ⁴⁄₅ chance of placing a giant spider on each web that is generated within the room during level creation.

The giant spider is the first quest monster for Tourists, and makes up ⁹⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Tourist quest. Several giant spiders are generated on multiple floors of the quest branch at level creation: twelve are placed randomly on the home level, and sixteen each are generated on the locate level and goal level. Giant spiders also appear among the random s that are part of the first quest monster class for Tourists and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated there.

Giant spiders additionally appear among the random s that are part of the second quest monster class for Rangers and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Ranger quest.

Strategy

Giant spiders move faster than an un-hasted hero at 15 speed, and their poisonous bite can deal significant damage to early-game characters, including loss of strength and constitution that can possibly be devastating and may bring about a premature end. Barbarians, Healers, Monks that reach experience level 3, and orcish heroes have much less to fear from giant spider bites, though a hero with a low level, HP and/or AC should still prevent them from closing in if possible.

Ranged attacks are ideal to quickly bring down an approaching giant spider, with Elbereth and scaring tools being quite good for maintaining distance: be mindful of your surroundings when shooting projectiles or throwing other objects, since they may get caught in any undiscovered webs within the hero's line of fire! Most wands, potions and spells are also fairly effective against giant spiders due to their lack of any MR score.

Giant spiders are relatively little trouble once you have poison resistance, some quality armor and a few experience levels under your belt, giant spiders are, but you should still move around their domains with caution since the webs they create can still trip you up—searching can reveal webs, and force-fighting in the direction of a known adjacent web while wielding a bladed weapon can cut them down with a chance based on the hero's appropriate weapon skill (while also training that skill). Sting will always cut through webs when used this way, as can Fire Brand, and wielding a bladed weapon will make untrapping another monster caught in that web much easier.

If you are capable of reliably killing giant spiders, and you either have an extrinsic source of poison resistance or a means of handling attribute loss (e.g., restore ability or gain ability potions, the restore ability spell, a ring of sustain ability, or prayer), you can eat their corpses for a reasonable chance of obtaining the intrinsic. Applying a tinning kit to the corpse will also create a tin that is safe to eat.

It is uncommon at best for players to actively polymorph themselves into giant spiders, due to the transformation destroying body armor and shirts while forcing them to drop their other worn armor and wielded weapons: however, the polymorph form does technically enable a hero to permanently remove almost any trap by digging down on the trap's square to create a pit, then polymorphing into a giant spider to cover up the pits with webs—in practice, using a wand of cancellation is more likely to be practical for general trap removal, especially since some traps will explode when destroyed by any means and the wand allows the hero to maintain a safe distance.

History

The giant spider first appears in NetHack 1.3d, where it is capable of hiding under objects like the smaller spiders of later versions—from this version to NetHack 2.3e, the giant spider only appears if the SPIDER compile-time option is set, and is otherwise replaced by the scorpion. NetHack 3.0.0 adds both the giant spider and scorpion to the default bestiary.

In versions up to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, giant spiders weigh 100 aum, and their poisoned bite can cause instant death for the hero as well as attribute drain: applying a unicorn horn can cure strength drain from these attacks. Additionally, the ability to spin webs while polymorphed into a giant spider can also be useful in stealing from shops: by spinning webs and blocking the entrance square of the shop, the shopkeeper cannot step on that square to guard the entrance since they are unable to remove webs.

NetHack 5.0.0 increases the giant spider's weight to its current value via commit c9bc2f5a, and removes the ability of poison attacks against the hero to cause instant death via commit d0b11fd2 while replacing them with severe poison effects, as well as removing the unicorn horn's ability to restore attributes via commit 43d331c4. NetHack 5.0.0 also adds the giant spider's habit of spinning webs while moving via commit 2122506e, and refines it to its current behavior via commit b572ccb0, commit 8dfe9636 and commit dad804e1. Furthermore, the "spider nest" themed room is introduced via commit 9b74ea0b, with its level difficulty initially being set to 10 via commit c5b5a869 and commit 999222a8 before being reduced to 8 via commit 1e1d5803. Finally, shopkeepers are granted the ability to remove webs via commit 075844b4.

Origin

Depictions of oversized spiders are a common fixture in fiction: J.R.R. Tolkien features gigantic spiders of various size and scale in his Middle-Earth setting as early as The Hobbit in 1937 book. Giant spiders often roam Mirkwood, and throughout The Hobbit they attack and sometimes capture the main characters. Although described as giant spiders, Tolkien gives them additional non-arachnid attributes such as compound eyes, beaks and the ability to spin black webs.

The giant spider of NetHack is derived almost 1-for-1 from Dungeons & Dragons, where it is an uncommon type of chaotic evil spider. Giant spiders are web builders with a poisonous bite that construct their webs horizontally or vertically in order to entrap prey—some will lurk above a path in order to drop onto victims. Characters can break out of giant spider webs more easily with higher strength.

Variants

NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not include the giant spider's increased weight and web-spinning behavior.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, giant spiders behave as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions, but they will not be generated normally in Gehennom, and their poisoned bite attacks have a chance of instantly killing a hero without poison resistance as well as the standard chance of attribute drain. Strength drain from these attacks can be cured by applying a non-cursed unicorn horn, though unicorn horns in SLASH'EM require a higher enchantment for a better chance of curing each applicable trouble.

Giant spiders appear in a few locations outside of normal generation:

• The "town" variant of the kobold level generates a giant spider in the northeastern corner room during level creation.
• Two giant spiders are generated in the secret northwestern corner room of Grund's Stronghold during level creation.
• The Spider Caves generates 22 randomly-placed giant spiders during level creation, along with several giant spider eggs.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, giant spiders behave generally as they do in NetHack 3.4.3, and drow heroes can apply saddles to tame giant spiders. Giant spiders can also grow up into mirkwood spiders. As arachnids, giant spiders can trigger the "arachnophobia" madness.

Drow Noblewomen start each game with a tame and saddled giant spider.

Two giant spiders are generated on the Paradise Island map of the Sea during level creation.

Several giant spiders are placed in the upper filler levels of the Dwarf Noble quest during level creation, and the Gnomish Ranger Quest features web traps with giant spiders placed on them.

Giant spiders may appear in the 'audience' of a throne room ruled by a drow matron.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, giant spiders have their monster difficulty raised to 8 and are given an additional touch attack that entraps the target in webbing. Drow heroes are capable of taming giant spiders and other spiders as domestic animals.

EvilHack also adds large spiders, which are an intermediate growth stage for cave spiders and can grow up into giant spiders—giant spiders themselves can grow up into gargantuan spiders.

Encyclopedia entry

See the encyclopedia entry for spider.